Singapore to buy French Aster-30 surface-to-air missile system

Published on 18 Oct 2013 | Originally published on September 17, 2013 

Singapore will acquire a new European-made missile system named the Aster-30, the country's Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen said this week.

The city-state will buy the new surface-to-air missiles to replace the aging I-HAWK, already in service for 30 years, the minister announced on Monday.

"The Aster will allow us to engage multiple threats simultaneously and from a longer distance," Dr Ng told parliament. 

The Aster, developed by French firm MBDE Systems, like the I-HAWK from U.S. contractor Raytheon, is just over five meters in length, though it is 140 kilograms lighter and has a greater range than the I-HAWK.

Both systems rely on networked sensors for targeting information, though the Aster's are more advanced. The I-HAWK has a maximum range of 45 km. 

The Aster-30 has a range of 70 km and is more effective at engaging multiple air threats simultaneously.

Singapore has the largest defense budget in Southeast Asia, due to a cashed-up government benefiting from the country's robust economic growth.

It has set aside SG$12.34 billion ($9.8 billion) for defense in 2013, up from Sg$11.83 billion the previous year, the website Defence News reported.

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John Glaser, August 23, 2013

Even as they condemn the Syrian regime’s use of cluster munitions, the U.S. is selling Saudi Arabia $640 million worth of American-made cluster bombs. Cluster munitions have been banned in 83 countries on account of their indiscriminate nature and their record of killing children.

John Reed at Foreign Policy:

• These weapons are loathed because in addition to killing enemy combatants, their fairly indiscriminate nature means they can kill plenty of civilians. And not just in the heat of battle. The little ball-shaped bomblets dispersed by cluster munitions don’t always detonate on first impact. Often, they will just sit there on the ground until someone, often a child, picks them up and causes them to explode.
• So far, 112 countries have signed an international treaty banning cluster bombs, with 83 ratifying it.

The international ban began to take effect in June 2010, just after a U.S. cluster bomb killed 35 women and children in Yemen, with the Pentagon stubbornly refusing to admit to the wrongdoing despite damning evidence compiled by Amnesty International, which was later corroborated by classified diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks.

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It’s also worth pointing out how eager the U.S. is to keep giving Saudi Arabia, one of the most horrific, repressive, mysogynist theocracies in the world, all the weapons and money it asks for. Reed again:

• The cluster bomb sale is just the latest in a string ongoing arms deals between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia that include dozens of F-15SA Strike Eagle fighter jets, AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, H-60 Blackhawk helicopters and AH-6 Little Bird choppers as well as radars, anti-ship missiles, guided bombs, anti-radar missiles, surface to air missiles and even cyber defenses for those brand new Strike Eagles. It’s a relationship that’s worth tens of billions to American defense contractors. And even though the Saudi and the American governments have recently been at odds over a range of issues — Riyadh recently offered to replace any financial aid to Egypt’s military rulers that the U.S. withdrew — those arms sales are all-but-certain to continue. If the Saudis want cluster bombs, the U.S. will provide — no matter what the world thinks.

On the one hand, the U.S. is desperate to maintain the geo-political dominance it has held over the Middle East at a time when it seems to be slipping through their fingers. And on the other, one of the strongest lobbies in Washington – the defense corporations – really want to proceeds of these nefarious weapons sales. And you gotta please them.

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